(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conductive terminal, and more particularly to a conductive terminal which includes two conductive members, with each conductive member being provided with a groove which is concaved in from an edge of the host conductive member, and the two conductive members being combined with a hot melt fixing member, so that the two conductive members form contact limit to constitute an overheat protection structure for a path. In overheating, the hot melt fixing member is damaged that the two conductive members are opened by an elastic force to form open circuit.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
To avoid current overload, short circuit or overheating to a circuit, a wire fuse or circuit breaker will be usually disposed on the circuit, such that the wire fuse will have melt fracture by high temperature when the temperature of the circuit is too high or metallic spring leaves of the circuit breaker will trip when the current of the circuit is too large, so that the circuit can form open circuit and power off, thereby keeping the safe use of electricity.
Regarding to a related prior art of the wire fuse structure, there is a Taiwanese invention patent publication No. 1371053, “Thermal Fuse Connection Structure.” The thermal fuse includes primarily two terminals which are connected together to form a path, and a hot melt metal which is combined on the two terminals. Under the condition of current overload, circuit overheat or too high the ambient temperature, the hot melt metal will have melt fracture by heat, and the two terminals will not be connected together to form an open circuit state.
However, in the prior art, the hot melt metal is a conductive material. Therefore, when the hot melt metal shows melt fracture, if part of the hot melt metal is adhered on the two terminals, the adhered hot melt metal may easily cause miscontact between the two terminals, so that the circuit cannot power off completely. In addition, the hot melt metal that shows melt fracture can be ejected by the two terminals that are opened to form open circuit, and the hot melt metal showing melt fracture may collide with other object to form miscontact and result in short circuit, which is still dangerous in use.
A Taiwanese new utility model patent No. M477079, “Overheat Failure Safety Structure, a Socket and a Plug with the Overheat Failure Safety Structure,” employs an insulative stopper to connect two conductive members to form a path. When the circuit is overheated, the insulative stopper will have melt fracture, which allows the two conductive members to be opened by an elastic force and thus to form open circuit. The stopper is provided with a first insulative part and an opposite second insulative part, and utilizes a connection part to connect the first insulative part with the second insulative part, forming a U-shaped appearance to have an open end at which the two conductive members are tightly clipped.
By a practical test, it is found that in the U-shaped stopper, as the arm of force is longer at the location where the first insulative part and the second insulative part are more away from the connection part, the clamping force there will be weaker, which easily causes a partial ill contact to the two conductive members. It means that a better clamping force is easily available at the location where the two conductive members are close to the connection part of the U-shaped stopper; whereas, a better clamping force is not easily available at the location where the two conductive members are away from the connection part of the U-shaped stopper. Therefore, it is necessary to further improve the clamping between the U-shaped stopper and the two conductive members, so that the two conductive members can be more tightly contacted.